Dealing With It
by IBuriedTheLede
Summary: Lizzie Bennet Diaries-verse. As Darcy packs to return to Los Angeles, he contemplates the absolute calamity of his visit to Collins & Collins — until Fitz arrives and convinces him to show off the newsie hat just once more. Set after episode 61.


Darcy folded his crisply starched shirt with near-surgical precision, taking care to make as few creases as possible. There was something neat about packing, something calming that he reveled in, especially when upset. Not that he was upset. He was — there was no other word for it — furious. Furious at the absolute calamity this visit had turned out to be.

After carefully placing the shirt into his suitcase, Darcy moved back to the closet — only to come face to face with the red-checked button down. He drew a sharp, involuntary breath inward and immediately hated himself for it.

It was just a shirt. Red and black checks. Completely respectable and not at all garish. Something that befitted a man of his status and position in life.

He shook his head — at himself, at the thought, at all of it. Wasn't that exactly the kind of attitude Lizzie had found so disgusting just a few days ago? Darcy took another breath, battling internally as the frustration and overall wretchedness of the previous few days came rushing back.

If just seeing the damn shirt conjured such conflicting emotions, Darcy wasn't sure he could ever wear it again, which was a real shame. It was one of his favorites, and he had specifically selected it to wear on what had turned out to be his ill-fated trip to Collins & Collins. Red and black. _Red, the color of desire; black, the color of despair._

He started slightly at the unexpected thought, which was enough to give him some defense against the tide of vexation threatening to overcome him.

As placidly as he could, Darcy removed the shirt from the hanger and laid it on the bed to fold. It wasn't like him to associate emotion with inanimate objects, but there was no getting around the fact that the shirt held certain significance. After all, he had chosen to wear it to declare himself to Lizzie, and he had never said "I love you" to a person outside his immediate family before.

_Except that's not what you said. You said, "I'm in love with you."_

How dearly he wished he could silence his inner voice, how desperate he was to leave all thought of that day and his words (his poorly chosen, badly put, completely insulting words) and her response (her scathingly uncivil, disparaging, yet, perhaps, warranted response) behind him. Fitz was joining him on a flight to Los Angeles later that afternoon, and that was that. It was over. Darcy had done what was requested of him: he had filed his operational report on Collins & Collins. He had, humiliatingly, watched the videos. He had attempted to set the record straight in the letter. There was, quite simply, nothing left for him here, no matter how ardently he had wished — and had been so utterly certain — that there would be.

How unaware he had been, how foolish! Darcy had watched as the illuminating truth played out over three long hours, where he alternately delighted in Lizzie's humor and wit, her beauty and her vivacity and despaired at her now rather obvious disdain for him — which consequently made the stinging barbs against him even worse. _Boring, infuriating douchebag, stuck-up pompous prick, humorless, sociopathic robot._ How sorry she felt for the woman he ended up with. How mortified he was to admit that his own certainty of her filling that role had given him the courage to make his declaration.

Most of the insults weren't too terrible. It wasn't as though he hadn't heard them before. But never he had he heard them hurled with such rapidity and stinging accuracy as those in Lizzie's videos.

_At least she was thinking of you_.

That one pathetically pitiable thought had lodged itself in his brain somewhere around the second hour of watching Lizzie's video diary. It was the only silver lining he could find — that Lizzie, though she clearly harbored serious dislike for him, had at least considered his presence notable enough to include in her videos. An unpleasant, disagreeable presence, yes, but a presence nonetheless. That had to stand for something, right?

Darcy quashed the thought. He was being ridiculous.

Pretending that the sharpness of Lizzie's rejection wasn't severely acute was a vain effort. In his heart, he knew the truth, and denying it was of no use: Never in his life had he cared quite so much that someone have a good opinion of him, and never had he failed quite so spectacularly in that quest as he had with Lizzie. He had meant it when he said he had been unaware of her feelings toward him. It had never crossed his mind that she might dislike him. That made her rejection all the worse.

There was also the niggling worry that perhaps he had been wrong about Jane Bennet's true attachment to Bing — despite her behavior at his birthday party, which was still unexplained. And, he reasoned, as he had in his letter, if Bing had been so easily persuaded to leave, perhaps he never cared for Jane all that much in the first place. But Darcy was fairly certain he was inventing that rationale just to ease his own discomfiture, and that was too frustrating to contemplate. If nothing else, however, the videos had made him grow in his certainty that "energetic" was perhaps the most diplomatic, charitable word he could possibly have chosen to describe Lizzie's youngest sister.

If Darcy had thought watching the videos after his unequivocal rejection would yield any shift in his feelings, he had been — as he had so accused the unnamed _people who think otherwise _— living in a fantasy. The conflict between his brain and his heart roiled stronger than ever.

_Darcy-bot malfunction_.

He cringed. "Robot" was perhaps the worst disparagement of all. It indicated that he didn't care, didn't have feelings, didn't have a heart, and nothing could be further from the truth. The painful, tight squeeze in his chest was doing its absolute best to remind him that his heart was there and that it was breaking, and there was nothing Darcy could do about it. His only optional discourse was to ignore it and channel his energies into more useful pursuits, like packing. Or like hating George Wickham even more wholeheartedly than he had before. Darcy hadn't even thought that was possible.

If Lizzie's videos had in no uncertain terms showed how strong her dislike for _him _was, they had in turn shown just how unnervingly strong her attraction was to another.

Darcy's blood boiled, and he yanked at the arms of the red-checked shirt until they were splayed haphazardly. He wasn't sure who he was angrier at: himself, for being such an imbecile; Lizzie, for being so easily persuaded about the terrible, untrue slander against him; or George, for filling her head with the malicious falsehoods in the first place.

The answer was George, of course. Why did it always come down to that cretin? Why was it that George could exert such power and influence over the people Darcy loved most? First with his father, then with Gigi, and finally with Lizzie. Darcy supposed that his father's attachment couldn't have been helped — George had always been a charming child. Growing up, Darcy had found himself rather embarrassingly envious of George, wishing to mimic his easy manners and quick charm. But as they grew older, Darcy realized that George's smooth veneer melted away to reveal a seedy, feckless underbelly when he was approached with even a hint of trial or tribulation. He had simply assumed others would realize this obvious truth. He should have known better; he should have kept Gigi well away. But changing the past was impossible.

Darcy had foolishly thought that Gigi giving up competitive swimming and taking up tennis would mean George Wickham was out of their lives forever. This, of course, was a dim-witted plot that revealed his own idiocy more than anything else. Darcy had been very much wrong, as he had been about so many things in recent days. And now he had to contend with a third and final piece of George Wickham's inescapable influence over his life. If Darcy was an outside observer — _or a consultant_, he thought, with a wry, unamused grin — he would have applauded George's tactical maneuvering in zeroing in on his enemy's weaknesses and, one by one, eliminating them until there was nothing left but the target. It was downright savvy. Darcy's father was gone and thus unable to see Wickham's true character. Gigi was left devastated, and Lizzie was filled with burning hatred. Darcy had been weighed, measured and most definitely found wanting.

Darcy supposed he had to give George _some _credit. he knew Darcy's penchant for social awkwardness and chose to capitalize on it, and his revenge could not have been exacted more completely and in more perfect fashion. _Why _the revenge, though, and _why _did it have to be levied so thoroughly as to hurt the people Darcy wanted only the best for? Gigi had only just begun coming out of her carefully molded shell; it had taken a year of diligent guidance and painstakingly selected mentorship to put her on the path toward being herself again. But why the hell did George have to select _Lizzie_ as his next target? Had his attempted vengeance by way of Gigi not been enough? Or did he simply not care who he hurt, just about his own personal satisfaction? Did it all really come down to the money, the money, the godforsaken money? Darcy had wished more than once that he had just given the damn money again to George — he could have financed it through the company, perhaps, though at the time he couldn't find a way to do it that wouldn't have put Gigi's college fund at risk should the market take another downturn. But he should have done it. He should have found a way. Perhaps it could have been enough to rid their lives completely of the selfish bastard.

_Your pride, arrogance and selfishness_.

Darcy gave a long-suffering sigh, smoothing out the red and black shirt where his earlier burst of rage had wrinkled it. How long were those words going to torture him? He knew his personal track record for horrendous first impressions was a fault that ought to be remedied. But it had become so commonplace that — upon his arrival at Netherfield at the very least — he had almost lost sight of the need to fix it. His awkward stiffness and formality among those he didn't know personally was so entrenched, his disregard for what others thought of him so thorough, and his general dislike for speaking other than what he thought to be the absolute truth so incontrovertible that he had little understanding of how to go about altering his behavior. No, he hadn't particularly liked Lizzie's town when he first arrived; yes, he avoided dancing to hideous popular music at weddings where he barely knew anyone in the room if he could help it. That much had been the truth.

He had thought Lizzie, who was pursuing a graduate degree in mass communications, could have at least a journalistic appreciation for the truth. But perhaps that was too much to hope for. And anyway, the fact remained that Lizzie, despite operating under a truly dreadful first impression — and, of course, several lamentably awkward interactions after that — had not truly written him off as a sociopathic robot until George Wickham had shown up.

_And after she realized your role in separating Jane and Bing._

Darcy concentrated on folding the shirt, intent on not listening to himself. It was much easier not to.

Instead, he took yet another deep breath and began the folding process his father had shown him all those years ago. Fold, crease, smooth. Fold, crease, smooth. It helped calm him, helped him regain his composure and dignity. Without those, his world would spin out of control.

It had taken every shred of composure he had left to even return to Collins & Collins to hand Lizzie the letter. To return to where she was filming — _again _— and talking about him. Again.

Yet this conversation had gone better, much better. Darcy had adequately expressed what he _needed_ to say — though not all that he _wanted_ to say, but the last time he had said what he _wanted_ he had ended up with a bruised ego and a broken heart. Yes, it had definitely been better the second time around. He had even reassured her that he had no intention of pursuing legal recourse, and that had been an off-the-cuff comment! Perhaps he wasn't so very hopeless after all. It was disheartening to consider that she truly thought him capable of that kind of cruelty. George had done his work well.

_You haven't exactly shown much positive behavior to convince her otherwise._

How desperately he had wanted to stop, to turn, to have one last glance at her, before walking out of her life forever. Of course, he had paused on an involuntary impulse, and it had taken all of his considerable self-constraint to keep moving forward, despite how badly he wanted to do otherwise. How very badly he had wanted to kiss her. Would she have let him? No, of course not, she would have slapped his face and pushed him away. Darcy couldn't bear the thought. Instead he moved to the dresser drawer, gathering socks and under things to put in the suitcase.

A sharp rap on the open door announced Fitz's arrival. He stood in the doorway, looking somewhat cautious. Perhaps even a little contrite. Darcy couldn't quite bring himself to blame Fitz for Lizzie's anger — that blame lay squarely with himself, and with George — but there was still a part of him that was extremely frustrated with the way that Lizzie found out about his involvement in bringing Bing back to Los Angeles. She had been angrier about that than anything, and if he had only gotten the chance to _explain_...

_That's what the letter is for._

Fitz took a step into the room. "Hey, man."

Darcy nodded curtly at him.

"You almost packed?"

Darcy nodded again, spreading his hands out to the suitcase and empty closet.

"You know you have to speak sometime."

Yet again, Darcy nodded, quirking an eyebrow, and Fitz scowled. It was an old game between them, one they were well used to playing, and Fitz should know better than to ask yes or no questions that could be answered through gestures or facial expressions.

"Pray tell, Darcy dearest, how long do you think you'll be?" Fitz attempted again.

"Just a few more minutes," Darcy replied. He emptied the remaining drawers quickly, as Fitz stood there in amiable silence. His presence helped calm Darcy's nerves slightly — it was easier to focus, and not let his mind slide into self-remonstration or anger again.

With a final zip, his suitcase was packed and ready to go. Darcy stood in the empty room, wishing for nothing else than to be gone from it, and immediately. There was, as he had realized earlier, nothing left for him here.

"I can't stand seeing you like this," Fitz said suddenly, breaking the silence.

Darcy started. Was his heartbreak so apparent? Normally his calculated mask of impassivity kept unwelcome questions about his personal life and feelings at bay. But this was Fitz, who knew him better than most — perhaps he could see past the outward display.

"There's nothing I can do about it," Darcy said, shrugging. "I just want to get on the plane."

"I think you should say something. Or at least send her an email. Something." Fitz was plaintive, which Darcy hated. There was enough of that going on in his own heart already; he didn't need Fitz to add to the groundswell of already unwelcome emotion.

"I wrote her a letter," he said shortly. He hadn't been intending on telling anyone, but it felt good to acknowledge out loud. It made the letter real. Had she read it? What did she think of it? Darcy longed to know.

"A letter? Like, hand written, and everything?" said Fitz, evidently surprised.

"Yes, like, hand written and everything," Darcy said, throwing the words back. He quickly decided that he would forego mention of the wax seal and cursive script.

"What did it say?"

Darcy paused, trying to think of the adequate way to express it. "It just explained everything a bit. About George mostly. And a little about everything else."

"Like her sister and Bing," Fitz said slowly, looking at the ground.

Darcy made no response. He was all too keenly aware of Fitz's role in this, but Darcy couldn't bring himself to be angry. Fitz's intention had been good; he had been attempting to make Darcy appear likeable and loyal.

"Hey, man, really — I'm really, really sorry. I had no idea. Honestly."

Darcy glanced back at Fitz, who did indeed look sincere in his contrition.

"It's fine. I don't care about that," he said for the second time in recent days.

"Really?"

"Really." Darcy attempted a smile, but was forced to settle for a strained non-frown.

Fitz, however, smiled broadly.

"Good," he said. "Because I am here to get Team Darcy on the track toward success."

Darcy shot him a confused look. "What the hell is Team Darcy?"

"Your 'let's get Lizzie Bennet to like you' team!" Fitz said enthusiastically, pumping his fist in the air. Darcy glared at him.

"That teamwork would be nothing but an exercise in futility."

"It's funny, when you're angry, because you either say nothing at all or use four-syllable words," said Fitz, in what Darcy assumed was a teasing voice. He wasn't in the mood.

"I'm glad you find my aggravation amusing."

"See? Four syllables."

"Oh, shut up."

"That's much better." Fitz sat on the bed and gestured for Darcy to do the same. Sighing loudly so as to demonstrate his dislike for this plan, Darcy walked around to the end of the bed to join Fitz.

"What makes you think anything Team Darcy does could possibly work? She hates me." The words were painful, but saying them aloud would only reinforce their verity in Darcy's mind, and that was the only way to move forward. _She hates me. Lizzie _hates _me._

"See now, there's the rub," Fitz said, casually dropping Shakespeare in an offhand way that Darcy could never hope to emulate. "You may think she hates you. _She _may thinks she hates you. But that can change. Team Darcy's biggest hurdle was cleared before it even began, and that is that Lizzie Bennet is not indifferent toward you."

Darcy was perplexed, not the least with Fitz's double negative. "What's your point?"

"It would be one thing if you were just some random stranger that showed up and confessed your love. But you're not! She talks about you all the time."

"Yes, as discussed previously, she talks all the time. About _how much she hates me_."

Darcy thought he knew where Fitz was headed with this. Though he didn't want to allow himself the thought, he couldn't quite bring himself to stop it. At the moment, Fitz's reassurance felt like the exact balm needed to soothe his battered heart. He would just have to ensure that he stopped it before it turned into something completely ridiculous, like hope.

"She doesn't _know _you. How can she hate you if she doesn't know you?"

"She lived with us for a month at Netherfield. We have spent time together on multiple occasions. How can she possibly not know me? How is that not enough time?" Darcy's emerging frustrating sent off a warning bell in his head. He took a deep, steadying breath.

"Because she spent most of that time laboring under misconceptions and false accusations about you! Misconceptions stirred by someone with a vested interest in smearing your name!" Fitz was using his galvanizing, seize-the-day inflection. Darcy didn't feel like seizing anything, except perhaps George Wickham's throat.

"You mean George."

"Yes. And Caroline too."

That was another blow for which Darcy had been unprepared. Caroline, of all people. He knew she harbored affection for him, but he hadn't thought she would be so low as to besmirch his name, to encourage Lizzie in her dislike of him and prod her on to even greater levels of aversion and disregard, in what he could only see as an attempt to steer Lizzie away and leave the path clear for herself. Darcy wondered if Caroline would ever get the hint that he was, quite simply, not interested. Several times he had been close to sitting her down and informing her of it himself, but that had seemed cruel and unnecessary.

Yes, he had refrained from being honest with Caroline for the sake of avoiding unnecessary cruelty, yet when the chance arrived to declare himself to the woman he loved, he instead chose to inform her that her disadvantageous financial situation, her embarrassing mother and sister, and her lesser social standing had started an internal war between his brain and his heart. He really was _quite _the magnanimous individual.

Darcy chuckled quietly to himself. Could he be any more of a classic fool?

"Hey, where's that hat?" Fitz asked. Darcy looked at him with surprise.

"What?"

"The hat. The newsie hat."

Darcy froze. The hat was currently packed atop a first edition of _Anna Karenina _he had been intending to give as a gift. Fitz most definitely did not need to be aware of that.

"Why do you want it?"

"I have an idea." Fitz stood abruptly, as he was prone to do when good ideas struck. He said he thought better when moving around. "We need her to see your fun side," he continued.

Dryly, Darcy said, "I thought we'd previously established that I don't _have _a fun side."

"Well, maybe not your fun side, but at least your sense of humor!" Fitz said gamely. "You've got one of those, don't you?"

Darcy looked at him darkly. "I can have fun."

"Yes, yes, as we've noted, you're capable of having fun, just in limited and pre-prescribed doses."

Scowling, Darcy stood and moved to his suitcase, unzipping the front pocket where the hat lay atop the book. He took care to make sure Fitz couldn't see inside before zipping the pocket back up, hat in his hands.

"What do we need the hat for?"

"You'll see. Come on, we're going upstairs, you agoraphobic lobster."

"Agoraphobic has five syllables."

"Five is uniquely impressive. Four is just showing off."

"I'm afraid I fail to see the difference."

"Just trust me."

Darcy followed as Fitz walked to the stairwell at the end of the hall and climbed several flights of stairs to the rooftop. The sun was bright, and Darcy could see a hint of the Pacific between two buildings to the north. Several women were sunbathing, the Indian summer warmth keeping the chill that was hitting most of the rest of the country at bay. He held the hat in his hands, uncertain.

"We're lucky the fog hasn't rolled in," Fitz said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. "Now come on."

"What are we doing?"

"We're showing her your fun side."

"And tell me again why I have to do this?"

"Because you are my friend, and because I am on Team Darcy."

"Why are there teams again?"

"Dude. You know our consult at Collins & Collins is over, which means that you are no longer contractually obligated to ask annoying follow-up questions to every single thing I say."

Before Darcy could protest — his follow-up questions were useful, not annoying — Fitz continued. "You're showing her that you have a sense of humor. That you can laugh at yourself. That you can be silly."

Of the many words used to describe William Darcy, "silly" had not ever been among them. But this trip had included several firsts. Why not add one more?

"Besides," Fitz added, "you're going to need all the help you can get."

Darcy paused, hating himself for wanting to ask the question on his mind, hating that George was on his mind at all. "Do you think George has a team?"

Fitz put his hand on Darcy's shoulder. "I don't think so. At least not if you explained some things in your letter."

Darcy loathed that he had to reveal George's salacious behavior with his sister just to get Lizzie to believe that George wasn't necessarily the man she thought he was, and that Darcy wasn't a horrible human being. But Gigi had consented to let him tell someone — he hadn't specified who — and he trusted Lizzie to keep the secret. There was no way of getting around the fact that he wanted Lizzie to think the best of him. It made him sick to think that she was out there, thinking ill of him. So if Team Darcy had an idea that could potentially sway that resentment… well, who was he to get in the way?

Fitz held up his camera, shifting around to find the best angle, before looking up. "Put on the hat."

Darcy did so without protest, and Fitz smiled broadly at him before saying, somewhat patronizingly, "now _smile_."

Darcy did his best. Fitz tapped the button and immediately looked down to examine the photo. His frown was not encouraging.

"We need to increase the fun level even more," Fitz said. "And I think I know the perfect person for that."

For one horrifying second, Darcy thought Fitz was going to call Lizzie. But no, of course not, that would be ridiculous. He let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding as Fitz held out his camera to a nearby sunbather and asked her to snap their photo. How easily he could approach strangers, even half-naked ones in bikinis on rooftops! Darcy watched their interaction with envy, wishing he could be more at ease in social situations.

He tried to rid his thoughts of the wretchedness of the past several days, and focus on the positive — though it was painful, though he had been resoundingly rejected, though the object of his affection held him in complete disdain, his heart had stirred for the first time in years. That indeed was something to smile about.

Unbidden, the image of Lizzie's face cropped up in his mind as he looked at the phone's camera lens. The affection and care he felt for her reflected back in her expression, not a trace of hate apparent. Darcy knew it was hopeless, knew she would never care for him as he did for her — but a little imagination couldn't hurt, could it?

Fitz took his place beside Darcy, then turned and took the hat off. "You know, this hat is kind of stupid."

"I _like _this hat," Darcy said defensively. "It does its job well."

"So does a baseball cap."

"A baseball cap doesn't quite have the same level of sophistication."

"Five syllables, my man! You're learning."

For the first time in several days, Darcy cracked an actual smile. Fitz adjusted the hat so it lay lopsidedly, then turned to the bikini-clad stranger. "Ready!"

"Alright boys, now — one, two, three, smile!" The stranger snapped the photo. Fitz thanked her genially, then quickly went to work.

"I think the fun factor is sufficient," he said. "Let's get this baby onto Twitter."

Darcy nodded, absently raising his hand to touch the newsie hat. Never in his life did he think such a silly object would come to symbolize something so wholly different than its intended purpose.

He wore the hat for the entire trip back to Los Angeles.

###

**Well this certainly took on a life of its own. Thank you to everyone for the wonderful response to "On His Own," which honestly inspired me to write this. Not sure why I have so many thoughts about the angst of William Darcy, sociopathic robot, but I guess I'll just run with it. **


End file.
